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19,429 municipalities (cities)
16,504 townships (which also includes New England towns, even though they are incorporated like cities elsewhere)
You numbers are misleading. In Wisconsin, for example, every square inch of land in the state lies within a civil town, except where the population density has warranted incorporation as a city. There are 1,258 towns in Wisconsin (compared to 190 cities, only one of which is recognized by the OP), but some towns have populations of very close to zero, and about 99% of the population of the state lives in one of the cities. A Wisconsin town is nothing but an administrative subdivision of a county, and most are about 36 square miles (six miles square), irrespective of their populations. Every county has at least one city, which is where an overwhelming majority of the state's residents live, and discuss their city issues.
Not only am I not wrong, but you support my contention that there are 19,429 cities, while the OP want to close all discussions in this forum to people who do not live in about 50 of them. Except in New England, towns and townships exist exactly because there aren't enough people in them to form a city. However many thousands of them there are, their populations are negligible compared to people living in nearby cities. Including the City of Bayfield, population 487, every one of them eligible to call themselves residents of a City.
I'm surprised, given this forum is called city-data.com, I see a lot of posts (albeit not the majority) which talk about cities being crime-filled wastelands, cesspools of corruption, etc.
What would bring a poster who does not like American cities to post on a forum...about cities? I mean, I'm not going to say GTFO go to a site called suburb-data.com. This is not meant as a troll thread. I'm just genuinely curious why someone who doesn't like cities would come to the forum.
As you may have noticed, the forums are organized by States, not cities, so if you were moving to a state but didn't know where in the state you wanted to live, and needed to ask questions based on what you are looking for, City Data is the place to go. You may have also noticed how City Data divides up its data about locations:
The first division is by state and the second division is by this:
Population over 6,000 (is called "bigger cities")
Smaller cities, towns and villages (1,000 - 6,000)
Very small towns and villages (less than 1,000)
Notice in the first category, places with a population of 10,000 get just as much respect as places with a few million on City Data.
Personally, I can say the place I live in is a city because it is incorporated as one. We have our own schools, our own police, our own fire, our own trash collection and our own utilities apart from the County. We are called the City of Blank Blank. That's how I write the "pay to the order of" line on my check for the utility bill. The population of my "city" is 29,330 people as of the 2010 census. We also sit on 85.5 square miles of land. That makes our population density a veryvery low 343 people per square mile.
If you were driving through my city (I call it a town) you might think we're a small suburban town. In fact some suburban towns on Long Island, NY, for example, seem much more citified (crowded) to me
Let's compare my city to Boston, Massachusetts, another "city" you may have heard of. It has a population of 617,594 as of the 2010 census but it only sits on 48.4 square miles of land. It has a population density of 12,760 people per square mile.
Nearly every census-designated place in the USA with over a couple of thousand people is officially status-classified as cities according to municipality laws in that state.
Grew up in a Town of 190,000 people. There were census-designated places within the town, but all but a few have no legal power; just subdivision within the town.
If a substantial part of your growing up has been in a certain area, then it's hard to accept other areas as easily because of:
- different topographies
- distances to major bodies of water
- weather differences
- aesthetic appeal (vegetation, housing stock, charm, master-planned boulevards/streets)
- collective personalities (based on ethnic, racial, religious proportions)
- where they land on the conservative/liberal spectrum
I feel the opposite. i think its frustrating to compare cities because it almost always ends up as bigger is better. When the bigger of the two cities win, somone from a larger city enters the forum and explains why their city is better than the winner. Also it seems that it also ends in a bashing of suburbs. I like older more urban parts of a city. However suburbs aren't as bad as a lot of cd posters make them sound. there is a reason many are growing economically and in population. Truth is, many Americans love suburbia.
Yeah I think the opposite is more true. If your city doesn't look absolutely 100% Identical to Midtown Manhattan or the Tenderloin district then it's just a suburb.
Cities are crowded and noisy. I personally would prefer somewhere much smaller than where I am now. A nice little town in the country. Or better living on several acres outside of a little town where my nearest neighbors are not on an adjacent lot, but down the road somewhere. The only problem with that is, there aren't really any jobs there. Someday I will find a way to make it work though, and rid myself of the city life for good.
Pretty much the same, just trying to figure out how to make it work. How are your plans going in regards to this goal?
This is simply a forum on a much more elaborate site that carries the City-Data label.
I would say that the popular media version of city life doesn't hold true for many people and they are disappointed. Living in cities (and agriculture) is what helped civilize humans but that means giving up certain behaviors or freedoms that are important to some people. I think there must be a Goldilocks version of city life for most people -- something that fits just right. If they don't find it they get aggravated. If they hated city life they would find a way to leave.
Born and raised in a city, I went off to a small town for college and was hooked. Six years after graduation I moved to a town with about 38,000 people and lived there for 35 years but always went back to the city for special events, sports, or family things. I can no longer endure the crowded and impersonal city experience. Now I'm closer to a city of 500k (15 miles) but still have 1+ acre and few close neighbors. I'm not anti-city, I just found my alternative Goldilocks version.
The city I live in has only 8k people. We have a mayor, a city council, police dept, fire dept, sanitation dept, etc.... I tend to call it a town, but technically it’s a city.
I'm surprised, given this forum is called city-data.com, I see a lot of posts (albeit not the majority) which talk about cities being crime-filled wastelands, cesspools of corruption, etc.
What would bring a poster who does not like American cities to post on a forum...about cities? I mean, I'm not going to say GTFO go to a site called suburb-data.com. This is not meant as a troll thread. I'm just genuinely curious why someone who doesn't like cities would come to the forum.
Demographically, the forum heavily leans older and conservative.
So what you describe isn't surprising.
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It has a population of 617,594 as of the 2010 census but it only sits on 48.4 square miles of land. It has a population density of 12,760 people per square mile.
